The Plot to Hide Al Qaeda's Role in the Deadly Sept. 11 Attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi

One of President Obama's national security boasts in
the 2012 presidential election was that al Qaeda's ranks have been
"decimated," they're "on the run," and "on the path to defeat."

So when the evil, terrorist network built by Osama bin Laden
destroyed the U.S. consulate in Libya and killed our ambassador and three
other officials on Sept. 11, it sent a chilling message that, contrary to
Obama's preposterous claim, al Qaeda's very much alive and capable of
killing Americans with impunity on U.S. soil.

Indeed, despite Obama's election-year claim that al Qaeda had been
all but put out of business, they're deadly reach has since spread
throughout the Middle East, North Africa, the Far East and elsewhere.

This is why when their attacks occurred in Benghazi, in the midst of
the final, critical weeks of the campaign, the Obama administration went
to great lengths to soft-pedal its official explanation to the point of
hiding the fact that al Qaeda was involved at all.

The first explanation came from the State Department who said that
the attack as a peaceful protest triggered by anger over an anti- Muslim
Internet video in the U.S. that, well, kind of got out of hand.

In fact, it led to the killing of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three
others who perished in the fiery siege. Its statement made no mention of
al-Qaeda terrorists.

It was clear soon after that, as details tumbled out in a flood of
dispatches and eyewitness accounts, that this was not only a terrorist act
but by the al Qaeda network Obama said he had crushed.

But that wasn't the story the White House or Obama's campaign
advisers wanted voters to hear because they feared it would hand Mitt
Romney an effective national security issue against the administration.

Romney did immediately criticize the State Department's "protest"
explanation, correctly charging that this was a terrorist attack that
raised the question why the consulate was not given adequate security to
protect its staff.

The administration quickly shot back, accusing Romney of "playing
politics" with the killings, a political tactic the White House and its
allies in Congress have been using ever since. And a compliant news media
gave the Obama response headline treatment.

But just three days after the Benghazi murders, then-CIA Director
David Patraeus told the House intelligence committee behind closed doors
that al Qaeda had led the attack. His conclusion no doubt had already been
shared with the White House in Obama's daily intelligence briefing.

Nevertheless, on Sept. 16, five days after the killings, the White
House sent U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice to five separate Sunday morning TV
news programs where she continued to peddle the phony political
explanation that the attack started as as a "spontaneous reaction" to
Muslim outrage over the anti-Muhammed video.

While Rice observed vaguely that "extremists" may have been involved
in the attack on our consulate, she never uttered the name of "al Qaeda."

As Republicans escalated their attacks that the White House's
laundered narrative of the attacks had the smell of a coverup, the
administration finally admitted publicly that the incendiary killings in
Benghazi were the work of terrorists, though there was no mention of al
Qaeda.

But that came nearly a week after Rice's unbelievable explanation on
the Sunday talk shows that was at odds with the real story on the ground.

"I think it's very odd the story line they chose omitted al Qaeda,
which would help the president enormously," Sen. Lindsey Graham of South
Carolina said Sunday on Meet the Press.

Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who with Graham, has been among the
White House's fiercest Republican critics of its handling of the attacks
and what he perceives to be a coverup to protect the president in the
final weeks of the election. Both have maintained a drumbeat of criticism
of Rice and the White House, fueling the emerging scandal that has become
a staple on the nightly news and shows and no signs of going away anytime
soon.

Obama lashed out at his critics at a White House news conference
last week and defended Rice, charging that "To besmirch her reputation is
outrageous." If McCain and Graham "and others want to go after somebody,
they should go after me," he said.

But McCain, who has threatened to block Rice if she is nominated to
take Hillary Clinton's position as secretary of state, now calls her a
"bit player" who was responsible for "passing on a narrative"
that misled the American people. "I blame the president more than anybody
else," he says.

The White House has had an all purpose, dismissive response to the
GOP's relentless assault of what we may now correctly call "Benghazigate."
Partisan politics.

But the fact remains that two intelligence committees, one led by
Republicans in the House and the other by the Democrats in the Senate are
now investigating who was responsible in the White House chain of command
for writing a bogus narrative that left out any mention of al Qaeda who
were the perpetrators in the case.

Does Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois, who has been the Democrats'
point man in rebutting the GOP's charges, still think that is nothing more
than partisan politics?

There is another important part of the Benghazi debacle that seems to
have been given little or no attention lately, and that is why the
desperate pleas for additional security at our consulate fell on deaf ears
at the State Department.

Obama and his White House political team may believe, or have deluded
themselves into believing, that al Qaeda has been decimated and no longer
threatens us.

But there is a courageous U.S. ambassador and three of his bravest
associates whose deaths offer irrefutable testimony that Obama's campaign
boasts about the end of al Qaeda is partisan politics at its worst.